Quotes by Ted Leo - Page 1 | QuoteForever

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

I am always thinking music.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Always Thinking
Thinking
Copy Quote
Some people never need to let up at all.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Needs
People
Copy Quote
Bands-- enough with the crayon face-paint-- you're better than that.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Band
Enough
Faces
Copy Quote
If you live up against train tracks, it can make your life a living hell.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Hell
Track
Train
Copy Quote
I do feel like at the end of anger I have to have something that grounds it.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Ends
Feels
Copy Quote
I actually dream a lot of songs, and I try to be good about voice-memoing ideas.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Death
Dream
Ideas
Song
Voice
Copy Quote
I used to think success would be sustainability. Not being behind the eight ball.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Eight
Thinking
Would Be
Copy Quote
I've dreamed about performing songs, songs that don't even exist, as a complete song.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Performing
Song
Copy Quote
I gotta make a living somehow, and make ends meet. I accept the idea of having a retirement.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Accepting
Ideas
Retirement
Copy Quote
I'm even old-school Instagram. I'm here for your "What did you have to eat today?" I'm fine with that.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Old School
Instagram
School
Today
Copy Quote
I actually enjoy Instagram. I enjoy seeing what people who I have some connection to are doing around the globe.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Connections
Instagram
People
Copy Quote
I love touring. But it's super nice to have a new reason to play shows that isn't based around that perennial cycle of album/tour/promotion.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Albums
Nice
Play
Copy Quote
I think I'd like to see CDs disappear. Too much plastic crap lying around. If I want some music these days, I'm gonna either get as MP3s or on vinyl.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Lying
Thinking
Vinyl
Copy Quote
When you make a record and have to go out on tour for it, you have to go out on tour for it. Whether it's going to be joyful or not, you have to do it.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Joyful
Records
Copy Quote
You play the one song that people want to hear the most every night, and for every audience that's a special thing. And usually that translates back to you.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Night
Play
Song
Copy Quote
I know that the dream mind is irrational, but I like to think that if I hear something in a dream that's really good, then it's irrational... but it's not crazy.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Death
Dream
Crazy
Mind
Thinking
Copy Quote
There's a definite machinery behind everything that a band does, and sometimes it's hard to figure out how far to go in delegating certain responsibilities and staying COMPLETELY DIY.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Responsibility
Sometimes
Copy Quote
Most of the time I wind up with a sleepily mumbled melodic line, sometimes with words, sometimes not. But then with my waking brain I have to decide whether it's worth...I mean, sometimes it's not worth it.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Brain
Mean
Wind
Copy Quote
If so much of your experience is devoted to the thought of documentation, you're already sort of spinning out this narrative from this moment that you are attempting to control instead of just experiencing it.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Documentation
Narrative
Spinning
Copy Quote
When you're traveling on a body of songs that you have played for many, many years, for most nights of your life - I'm sure you've experienced this yourself - it's not that every night is not it's own thing. It is.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Night
Song
Years
Copy Quote
I actually enjoy Instagram. I enjoy seeing what people who I have some connection to are doing around the globe. I'm even old-school Instagram. I'm here for your "What did you have to eat today?" I'm fine with that.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Old School
Instagram
People
Today
Copy Quote
Sometimes a loss that just comes out of left field rings in a very weird way when you have actually sort of relied on this small moment with this or that person, as a moment that actually has defined something for you in your life.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Loss
Small Moments
Way
Copy Quote
I think it's become such a part of younger people's daily life to have the instant access to each other that it sometimes gets a little presumptuous. People feel like it's OK, for example, to email you with some weird personal criticism they have.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Criticism
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
When I get into the moment of actually feeling like I want to write, to finish something, I do what I've always read authors do, and park myself at a desk and bang things out for three hours. And if I have to throw it all away, I throw it all away.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Bangs
Feelings
Writing
Copy Quote
As I've grown older I've been more influenced by more meandering styles of guitar playing, whether it's Celtic or Ethiopian folk music or some kind of noisier jazz like Sonny Sharrock. In terms of songwriting, I don't know that I could even pin it down.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Guitar
Jazz
Style
Copy Quote
The obsessive documentation is itself adjacent to hyper-consumption in our society. The desire to just have everything all the time and adjacent to that is - it might be a little hokey but - a certain loss of identity that then only gets sort of found or ascribed to these moments that are documented.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Desire
Identity
Loss
Copy Quote
Though I know for a fact that some of my fans would be happy for me to do anything that's going to help me be successful, namely to go to a major label, and I thank them for that, there'd be a lot of people who I think wouldn't be so happy with that change, and when I DO get dropped, then where would I be?
Ted Leo / Songwriter
People
Successful
Thinking
Copy Quote
Despite the fact that I trust the people at major labels who tell me that they want to offer me a home as a "stable artist," who can just do what he does for the long haul, time has shown that it rarely works out that way - the bottom line is the bottom line, not mention the threat of mergers and firings and whatnot, and people get dropped.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Home
Artist
Long
Copy Quote
When I started playing solo 10 years ago, I had some ham-fisted idea about trying to subvert the "singer-songwriter" tag/genre, and I tried to obscure my identity into the identity of a collective or band or whatever. That's part of the reason that I used to play with backing tapes and why so much of my early stuff was so awash in tape hiss and echo noise.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Identity
Obscure
Trying
Copy Quote
It's almost weirder sometimes when you don't have a full life experience with someone's ups and downs, knowing what they've been through. Sometimes a loss that just comes out of left field rings in a very weird way when you have actually sort of relied on this small moment with this or that person, as a moment that actually has defined something for you in your life.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Knowing
Loss
Small Moments
Copy Quote
The early 2000s for me were a very emotional time, politically. I'd been through Reagan and been through first Bush and Clinton, and it's not like I had an easy time through those years. But I just thought it was particularly rough. I have to say the World Trade Center attack was very weird for me. The events that followed were worse. It was a really long swath of time.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Emotional
Long
Years
Copy Quote
Someone once said that "The Waste Land" was a scum of poetry floating on a sea of footnotes. That resonated with me, because that's kind of what I was doing lyrically for a while. I was being very referential in a way. I would drop in these little phrases or ideas that were sort of portholes into a whole bigger realm of thought or whatever, that would work within the song, but that you could also poke through into a bigger discussion.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Ideas
Land
Song
Copy Quote
There are more people that are WORTH playing for and making records for than the fickle and casual - they just don't blog about what they hate as much. I feel like every show that we play live reminds me of why I play music. When you're away from that personal connection, you can get wound up in all the hoo-ha about this and that, but when you get out there and connect with people, you can't help but be moved, and that keeps you going at least until the next show!
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Hate
Helping
People
Copy Quote
My "degree" has done nothing for me at all. But that I've learned - the critical thought processes I've tried to keep sharp - these things were furthered along by college. I hated so much of my life "at university," but I also loved so much of it, and the things that I loved about it have kept me in a sort of "scholarly pursuit" to this day. Maybe it messed me up because I believe that there are things like truth and beauty, and that art and discussion can help us find them and enhance our lives.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Art
Believe
College
Copy Quote
The obsessive documentation is itself adjacent to hyper-consumption in our society. The desire to just have everything all the time and adjacent to that is - it might be a little hokey but - a certain loss of identity that then only gets sort of found or ascribed to these moments that are documented. If so much of your experience is devoted to the thought of documentation, you're already sort of spinning out this narrative from this moment that you are attempting to control instead of just experiencing it.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Desire
Identity
Loss
Copy Quote
There's a lot of discussion about whether you should be a good live band or a good studio band. I think you can use the studio to make a great "studio record" and not necessarily have to reproduce exactly that on stage, but still be a great "live band." Having said that, if what you're going for is just the raw capture of your live sound, then that's cool, too - go for it! I enjoy working in the studio, though, and while I try to get near to an approximation of what's going on onstage, it's not my first priority usually.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Priorities
Thinking
Trying
Copy Quote
I am the stereo-typical classic lapsed Catholic. Religious themes crop up in my songs sometimes as metaphors and other kinds of touchstones for getting at issues and "deeper issues," and all that. Right now, honestly, I think all religion is proving itself to be a NET negative on the human race. I recognize its valuable place in individual lives and many larger communities - I know the good that is done in its various names all over the world, but I don't believe in it anymore, and I see the negative aspects dragging us down at a much faster rate than the positive ones are bouying us up.
Ted Leo / Songwriter
Believe
Religious
Song
Copy Quote

Related Songwriter Authors

Zachary Cole Smith
Songwriter
Wednesday, Nov 07, 1984
Young De
Songwriter
Saturday, Mar 07, 1981
Yoshiyuki Tomino
Songwriter
Wednesday, Nov 05, 1941
Will Sheff
Songwriter
Wednesday, Jul 07, 1976
Will Jennings
Songwriter
Tuesday, Jun 27, 1944
Valerie Simpson
Songwriter
Monday, Aug 26, 1946
Tuomas Holopainen
Songwriter
Saturday, Dec 25, 1976
Troy Andrews
Songwriter
Thursday, Jan 02, 1986
Tom Kimmel
Songwriter
Tom Adair
Songwriter
Sunday, Jun 15, 1913
Tuesday, May 24, 1988
Tim Hughes
Songwriter
Sunday, Jul 23, 1978
Thao Nguyen
Songwriter
Ted Leo
Songwriter
Friday, Sep 11, 1970
Steve Robson
Songwriter
Steve Hackett
Songwriter
Sunday, Feb 12, 1950

View All Songwriter Quotes

Top Authors

Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Henry Ford
Industrialist
Thursday, Jul 30, 1863
Monday, Apr 07, 1947
Saint Augustine
Saint
Saturday, Nov 13, 0354
Wednesday, Aug 28, 0430
Voltaire
Writer
Sunday, Nov 21, 1694
Saturday, May 30, 1778
Theodore Roosevelt
26Th U.s. President
Wednesday, Oct 27, 1858
Monday, Jan 06, 1919
Plato
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Khalil Gibran
Poet
Saturday, Jan 06, 1883
Friday, Apr 10, 1931
Epictetus
Philosopher
Billy Graham
Evangelist
Thursday, Nov 07, 1918
Thomas Aquinas
Priest
Tuesday, Jan 28, 1225
Wednesday, Mar 07, 1274
Dolly Parton
Singer-Songwriter
Saturday, Jan 19, 1946
Tyler, The Creator
Rapper
Wednesday, Mar 06, 1991
Deepak Chopra
Author
Wednesday, Oct 22, 1947
Donald Trump
45Th President Of The United States
Friday, Jun 14, 1946
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philologist
Tuesday, Oct 15, 1844
Saturday, Aug 25, 1900

View All Authors

Share This Page